As is known in the art, there are a variety of known protocols for transferring voice, data, and signaling traffic using Internet Protocol (IP) packet switching technology over the Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) infrastructure, which has traditionally been used for television broadcast. One such protocol is defined by the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS). However, in DOCSIS systems, the (HFC) upstream bandwidth is a potential bottleneck due to the relatively limited availability of bandwidth and the potential high demand for residential telephony and high-speed data applications.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a system having efficient schemes for managing the limited upstream bandwidth so that the blocking and delay requirements of voice and signaling traffic and the delay and throughput requirements of data traffic can be satisfied.